1. Diminished Dimensions
Keyboard Magazine Article – April 2004
By Howard Rees with Ernie Rideout
As creative improvisers,we're thoughtof as being very free with our approach to music.Buta lot of us end up
practicing patterns an awful lot, particularlywhere diminished scales and harmonies are concerned.Notthat this is
bad; it's a beneficial and necessarystep to take in the masteryof the keyboard.
Where improvisation is concerned,though,we often end up playing what we practice, and knowing your diminished
scales doesn'tnecessarilylead you to a lot of creative experimentation.Many of us use the diminish ed scale and
chord simplyas a sound.
So I'd like to introduce you to a framework for practicing freedom and incorporating itinto your playing, in a way that
gets very interesting sonic results.The goal is to help you be free with creating voicings and lines,justby starting out
with a diminished seventh chord,one of the more utilitarian chords in our bag of tricks.You then alter the sound
you're playing by borrowing from the diminished chord one half-step above or below the one you've started with.
From there, it's simplya question ofmixing and matching.
Keep in mind that when we mention the min7b5 voicing,you can also think of it as a min6 with the root a third higher;
the same goes for min7 voicings,which are maj6 chords with a root a sixth higher;this makes iteasier to think of
moving the voicings up and down the corresponding maj6 or min6 scale.It's not as importantto think whatthe new
chord is before you play it; justthink of reaching up or down to create cool voicings.
Check out the chart below:
If you lower any note of the middle diminished chord,you get a dominantseventh chord;so you have a family of four
possible dominantseventh chords to work from. If you raise any of the notes,you get a family of min7b5 chords— II
chords—which are themselves related to the family of dominantseventh chords — V chords—we justmentioned.
Since these chords are all related by their II-V connections,they're available to you to use as you wish;you can think
of it as a familyof II chords above the middle diminished seventh chord,that are related to the family of V chords
below the middle diminished chord.
Enough discussion.Jump in and play through the examples beginning below,and hear whatyou can do by looking at
the diminished seventh chord this way. Practice these examples in all 12 keys, but remember to justexperimentwith
simplyborrowing from above and below.I hope you'll experience a new world of colours atyour fingertips.
2. Without further ado, here's how it works.We'll start with the Ddim7 from the Keyboard Chord Decoder No.1.To
associate itwith a dominantchord,let's drop one of its notes a half-step—or borrow the note from the diminished
seventh chord a half-step below—saythe B to Bb; this gives us a Bb7chord,so we've put a Bbin the bass.Next, we
can play the Ddim7 in root position over that Bbin the bass,and it'll sound pretty good;but let's use a Drop 2 voicing
to make it sound better. Drop the second note from the top of the chord down an octave; this puts the Abdown onto
the bass staff,making a nice shell voicing in the left hand. Cool.Now let's apply our simple borrowing system to our
Ddim7 in Drop 2: Let's borrow an F# from the diminished seventh chord a half-step above,which gives us the first
notes of the chord in this example,which if you get all analytical,could be thoughtof (as long as you think of
enharmonic spellings) as an Abmin7b5 over a Bb. The Abmin7b5 is from the family of II chords in the "chord above"
in the Keyboard Chord Decoder, and it relates to the Db7 chord from the family of V chords in the "chord below."
Remember:chords from these related families can be mixed and matched freely. So what aboutthat E? Taking all
the notes of the Drop 2 voicing into account, we now have an E7 over the Bb, and E7 is indeed from the family of V
chords in the "chord below."With the F at the end of the bar, we return to our Ddim7 chord in Drop 2 voicing, and
then we resolve in the next bar to an Ebmaj9.Really,all we want you to think is this:Move the F up a half-step to a
note from the "chord above," down to a note from the "chord below," and then back to the original diminished chord.
Piece of cake, and you: get this nifty moving line that drives you to the resolution.
Example One
Quick, let's do it again while it's still fresh in your mind;but let's start with the idea of justborrowing notes first,and
we'll analyze afterwards.Begin with our good old Ddim7 from the Keyboard Chord Decoder No.1,and take one of the
notes from the "chord below"to associate us with a dominantchord from the family of related dominantseventh
chords and to give us a root in the bass,Bb. Put the root position Ddim7 above the bass note,then drop the second
note from the top down an octave, to get a Drop 2 voicing, which reads from top to bottom:B, F, D, and Ab. We could
stop here and be very happy with this voicing. But we want to be adventurous!How? Simple.Starting from that top
note B, borrow from the "chord above," which gives you a C on top, as you see in the example.Then move the C
back to the original B, and then borrow from the "chord below"to get a Bb. Then resolve to the Ebmaj9.Nicelydone,
and rather easy, don't you think? You basicallyjustmoved one of the notes of your Ddim7 up and down, yet you
created this nice moving line.You could even play a single chord using one ofyour moving notes with the restof the
notes in the voicing, and forget aboutthe motion.Let's talk about whatyou've done.By borrowing thatC on the first
beat, you created a Dm7b5over Bb, from the family of II chords in the "chord above;" this works because it's related
to the G7 that is one of the four dominantchords lurking in the "chord below."Lowering the C to the B puts you back
with your friend the Ddim7 above the B~. Borrowing the B~ from the chord below yields a Bb7 over Bb, which really
makes iteasy to resolve to the Ebmaj9.And all this because chords from these related families can be mixed and
matched freely. A Dm7b5,Dm7,and Bb7, all over a Bb? I'd say you mixed and matched freely, all right; and you
sounded good doing it.
Example Two
3. It's really that easy. Here are two additional ways to meddle with your Ddim7 chord,with a suggestion ofhow to keep
the chromatic motion going even after the resolution.
Example Three
Let's bring back the Keyboard Chord Decoder and figure out justhow much we can get out of this one handy little
Ddim7.In 4(a), you can see how to create each of the four related dominantseventh chords by lowering each ofthe
notes of the Ddim7 by a half-step;the lowered note is the root of the new dominantseventh chord.In the music for
4(a), our borrowing gives us a Db7 on beat 1 of bar 1, an E7 on beat2 (both over a Bb root), and an Abmin7b5 over
an E on beat3—the latter can be looked at as an E9, which is one of the related dominants from the familyof the
"chord below."
Keyboard Chord Decoder 2 The family of related dominants in the chord below:
Example Four (a)
4. In 4(b), the Keyboard Chord Decoder shows how to make each of the four related min7b5 chords from the "chord
above; the raised note is the seventh of the new min7b5 chord.The music for 4(b) shows the transformation ofour
pal the Ddim7 to an Fmin7b5 on beat 1 of bar 1, and an Abmin7b5 over E on beat 4. In bar 3, the Dmin7 starts as a
Dmin7b5 butquicklymorphs through a succession ofrelated harmonies with the chromatic movementofthe inner
voices, ultimatelybecoming a G#min7b5 over the E on beat3, then an Fmin7b5 over E on beat 4.
Keyboard Chord Decoder 3 The familyof min7b5 chords in the chord below:
Example Four (b)
Why borrow justone note from the diminished seventh chord above or below? In 4(c), the Keyboard Chord Decoder
indicates thatwhen you move two notes up or down,you get a minor seventh chord.In the music for 4(c), our frie nd
the Ddim7 starts life as a Bbmin7 on beat 1 of bar 1 and as an Fmin7 on beat 1 of bar 3; it resumes its dim7 form on
the second halfof the beat with a very keyboardistic move of a sixth in the outer voices of the right hand part.
Keyboard Chord Decoder 4 Why not move two notes at a time?
Example Four (c)
5. How far can you go and still be related? Pretty far, it turns out. You can move any three notes up or down a half-step,
moving practically all the way to the "chord above" or "chord below"and it all still sounds related.Very unusual,but
related.When you move three notes up, you get into another family of four dominants;when you move three notes
down,you get a new family of min7b5 chords thatare related to those new dominants.Bizarre, but true.
Keyboard Chord Decoder 5 Move it all,find new families.
Example Four (d)
Now for the II- V-I applications.This is where knowing your Ddim7 and its neighbors can give you some very
interesting voice leading.Let's practice by moving justone note from our original Dmin7 to get the initial new voicing
over the V chord; we can keep moving once we've established it.In 5(a), our note borrowing gives us an Abmin7b5
over the V chord. In 5(b), we start with a Dmin7b5 over the V chord.The point is,you don't need to think of the chord
first, juststart borrowing a note from the "chord above" and the chord below:
Example Five
